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Charles Demuth
Stairs, Provincetown
1920
watercolor on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Richard Diebenkorn
Berkeley no. 23
1955
oil on canvas
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Pietro Dovizelli
Scalinata di Spagna
ca. 1855
albumen silver print from glass negative
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Philip Guston
The Ladder
1978
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Helen Frankenthaler
Saturn
1963
acrylic on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Frances Benjamin Johnston
Students at Work
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Virginia
1899-1900
platinum print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Charles Whedon Rain
The Quay
1948
oil on board
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Marcantonio Raimondi after Giulio Romano
Martha leading Mary to Christ
ca. 1520-25
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Annibale Gatti
Episode from the Life of Michelangelo
ca. 1861
vault painting
Palazzina della Meridiana, Florence

Lee Friedlander
First New Hampshire Battery, Gettysburg
1974
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Richard Kauffman
Gnarled Stump, Dusy Basin
ca. 1961
tricolor carbro print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Johan Hagemeyer
Amaryllis
1942
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Victoria Gewirz
Celestial Eclipse
ca. 2001
inkjet print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Terry Frost
Grey Figure
1957
oil on board
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Sandra Gamarra
Pilgrim
2008
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Sigmar Polke
Watchtower
1984
acrylic on printed fabric
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Morris Louis
Beth Chaf
1959
acrylic on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sibylla at Wolfram's Bier

Dead, is he?  What's that further than a word,

Hollow as is the armour of a ghost

Whose chinks the moon he haunts doth penetrate.

Belief in death is the fell superstition

That hath appalled mankind and chained it down,

A slave unto the dismal mystery

Which old opinion dreams beneath the tombstone.

– Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Death's Jest-Book (1828)

Clarence John Laughlin

Clarence John Laughlin
The Unborn
1941
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Untitled (Victoriana)
1944
dye transfer print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Untitled (Girl in Window)
ca. 1945
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
The Brick Maze
1950
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Last Paradise for Dead Birds
1951
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Clock in Suspended Time
1951
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Language of Light
1953
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Flowers of the Nightland
1955
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Mars in the House of Time
1956
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Smithsonian Castle Interior, North Stairs
1967
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Arts and Industries Building, Stairs to South Tower
1967
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Tree of Immensity (Baton Rouge, La.)
1973
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Language of American Victorianism (Chicago, Ill.)
1973
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Fairyland in Iron and Glass
1973
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Door of the Strong-Headed Cherub (Chicago, Ill.)
1973
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Around a Hole in Space (Circus World Museum)
1973
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Clarence John Laughlin
Architecture of Light (Galveston, Texas)
1973
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

O barbarous Corsica* locked in by crags,

Rugged and vast where endless deserts stretch,
Fall brings no fruit, and summertime no crops,

No Attic olives bend the winter's branch;

From rainy spring no new births lure a smile,

And no grass grows on this ill-omened earth;

No bread, no taste of water, no fire in hearth:

Only two things – the exiled and exile.

– Seneca (4 BC-AD 65), translated by J.P. Sullivan (1991)

*the Emperor Claudius exiled Seneca to Corsica, AD 41-49

Flights

Artur Boström
Staircase of the Giants, Palazzo Ducale, Venice
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Domenico Fetti
Parable of the Ungrateful Servant
ca. 1619-21
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Eduard Gaertner
Staircase in the Berlin Palace
1825
oil on canvas
Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin

François-Marius Granet
Interior of a Roman Convent
ca. 1830
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Francesco Guardi
Palace Courtyard with Staircase
ca. 1780
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Robert Haglund
Staircase of the Riddarhuset
1891
etching
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Anonymous Italian Artist
Interior of a Barn
ca. 1800-1850
drawing
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Anonymous Italian Artist
Stage Design with Abduction of Sabine Women
ca. 1750-1800
drawing, with added watercolor
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Juan de Flandes
Ecce Homo
ca. 1500
tempera on panel
Národní Galerie, Prague

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
The Sitting Room
1923
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Arild Kristo
Four on Steps by the Seine
1962
gelatin silver print
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Peder Severin Krøyer
Loggia in Ravello
1890
oil on panel
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Alexandre Lunois
Laundresses
1893
engraving
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Constant Moyaux
Propylaea, Acropolis, Athens
1864
watercolor on paper
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Giovanni Maria dalle Piane (il Molinaretto)
Portrait of Carlos de Borbón, Duke of Parma
1732
oil on canvas
Palacio Real de La Granja de San Ildefonso

Fleury Richard
Michel de Montaigne
visiting Torquato Tasso in Prison
1822
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Theagenes entreated her to keep her tongue from blasphemy and advised her to set even greater store by piety than by chastity, but Charikleia continued her tirade until she suddenly broke off to exclaim: "Heaven have mercy upon us!  Such a dream I dreamed last night – if dream it was, and not reality!  At the time it somehow slipped from my thoughts, but now it comes back to me.  The dream was in the form of a line of verse, and it came from the lips of Kalasiris, most blessed among men.  Either I fell asleep without realizing, and he came to me in a dream, or else I saw him in the very flesh.  It went something like this, I think:

If you wear pantarbe fear-all, fear not the power of flame:

Miracles may come to pass: for Fate 'tis easy game.

Theagenes shook like a man possessed and, so far as his chains permitted, sprang to his feet. "May heaven look kindly upon us!" he cried. "Memory is making a poet of me too!  I have an oracle from the selfsame prophet; be it Kalasiris or a god in Kalasiris's shape, he appeared to me and seemed to speak these words:

Ethiopia's land with a maiden shalt thou see: 
Tomorrow from Arsake's bonds shalt thou be free.

– Heliodorus, from The Aethiopica, or, Theagenes and Charikleia (3rd or 4th century AD), translated from Greek by J.R. Morgan (1989)